Friday, March 12, 2010

Why did Ghalib’s death anniversary pass unnoticed?

February 15 passed as an ordinary day — unnoticed, unclaimed and unsung. It was the day on which the famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib died 141 years ago. The poet that set new trends in Urdu poetry.

Noted Urdu critic and philosopher Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqui termed it a general apathy among the literati and men of letters who ignored the death anniversary of the great poet. He mentioned Idara Yaadgar-e-Ghalib (Ghalib Library) at Nazimabad that has become inert after the death of Mushfiq Khwaja. Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu Pakistan, according to Dr Siddiqui, should have commemorated the day but it has become a dormant body, having hardly 58 members.

“It is lamentable that even literary figures don’t remember the great poets and writers of the past. Only one television channel showed the portrait of the poet with two or three of his couplets. It is not enough, but still encouraging because other channels did not even bother to mention him on his death anniversary,” Dr Siddiqui said.